The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or for the government of the United States of America for governmental purposes without the payment of any royalties thereon or therefor.
Not Applicable.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of water retrieval devices and more particularly, to an evacuation/rescue backboard that inflates to create positive buoyancy which assists in the removal of an injured individual from a perilous water area, such as a pool, ocean or lake. More particularly, a preferred embodiment of the present invention assists in the removal of an is injured individual who has incurred a spinal injury.
2. Description of the Related Art
Water rescue of a victim who is injured, trapped or in danger of drowning often requires the rescuer to put himself in similar danger. The danger is even greater in situations involving turbulent water such as rapid flowing currents of a river or large tides of a lake or ocean. To this end, it is known to provide floatation devices which may be used by a rescuer to reach the victim from a remote position. Rescue from a remote location often allows the rescuer to reach the victim more quickly and involves less risk of harm to the rescuer. Commonly known such devices include ring-shaped life preservers having a rope attached so that the rescuer may toss the life preserver to the victim and pull the victim to safety. One difficulty in using a life preserver for rescue is guiding the life preserver to the victim. If the initial throw of the life preserver does not place it sufficiently close to the victim, the rescuer must pull the life preserver in and make further throws, resulting in lost time and effort. Storage and transportation of bulky floatation devices is another common problem since the rescuer often must carry several pieces of equipment to the rescue site.
The prior art deep water spinal injury technique first involves the lifeguard bringing the injured victim to the comer of the pool head first with the victim""s face out of the face water and body bisecting the angle of the corner. Two assistants then maneuver the backboard under the injured victim. With the backboard in place, a plurality of retention straps are carefully tied around the victim to the board in the ankle area, knee area, waist area, chest area, and lastly, around the head to immobilize the neck and spine as much as possible before lifting the victim from the pool. In the prior art method, the actual lifting from the pool had to be done by persons out of the pool which was particularly difficult since the injured victim on the backboard had to be held horizontal at all times, both in the water and upon lifting from the water.
Current backboard configurations are designed so that the backboard has sufficient positive buoyancy to support the victim in the water. This positive buoyancy, of course, greatly complicates placement of the backboard under the victim because the rescuers must physically overcome that buoyancy to complete the placement task. Clearly if only the minimum two rescuers are available, placement of the backboard will be difficult at best. In fact, many smaller lifeguards cannot force the positively buoyant standard backboard underwater without assistance. The same problems and limitations arise when attempting to retrieve or transport other immobile objects from the water. For example, scuba divers and snorklers often need assistance in transporting various treasures discovered on the floors of lakes, oceans or rivers.
Numerous innovations for aquatic retrieval devices have been provided in the prior art that are described as follows. None of these existing inventions, however, describes the design or concept of the present invention. Even though these innovations may be suitable for the specific individual purposes to which they address, they differ from the present invention and are contrasted as follows.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,674, issued to Miller on Mar. 13, 1994, is a mechanical assembly to remove spinal-type injuries from deep water. The assembly is used to facilitate the often-difficult removal of the victim from deep water by increasing the mechanical advantage of the lifting process. While using a standard backboard, this patent does not discuss nor use either positive or neutral buoyancy techniques, a central concept of the Neutral Buoyancy Backboard design.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,912, issued to Scheidel et al. on Oct. 2, 1984, discloses a backboard design that can be sterilized and a backboard which is corrosive, splinter, rot, and stain resistant; and does not interfere with X-rays. Also, the design can clearly be used in an aquatic environment and discusses buoyancy as an attribute of its design. However, U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,912 does not disclose an apparatus that utilizes inflatable bladders to create positive buoyancy.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,534, issued to Timmerman on Apr. 25, 2000, uses an inflatable evacuation/rescue sled to transport a victim already secured to a backboard. The backboard-secured victim is placed in the sled, the sled is inflated, and the sled is used for transport across floors, down stairs, or in difficult-to-navigate areas. The backboard in this design is in a standard configuration, and the buoyancy of the backboard is not a factor. While the design does use inflation to form the sled, that inflation occurs after the victim is stabilized, not before stabilization as is one aspect of a preferred embodiment of the present invention U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,222, issued to Elias on Oct. 11, 1994, the Water Rescue Sled, is a buoyant body configured to support a recumbent victim behind a towed vehicle. The sled is designed with stiffness adequate to support a spinal injury victim. The sled is not inflatable nor does it change buoyancy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,664, issued to Sofian on Nov. 18, 1997 discloses an inflatable pontoon for performing multiple water rescue operations, and adding longitudinal sections may extend the pontoon. A backboard may be suspended between two pontoons. The backboard in this application is a standard configuration, and the victim is already secured to the backboard before loading. Buoyancy changes are not utilized to effect securing the victim to the backboard.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention to provide a neutral buoyancy recovery device (NBRD) adapted for aquatic retrieval where only one rescuer is necessary to retrieve an object and only two rescuers are needed to remove an injured victim from water. A preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a backboard designed with neutral buoyancy, which will allow the backboard to be moved easily underwater into the proper position under an incapacitated individual or other relatively immobile object. Once in position under the immobile object, a compressed air cylinder is activated, inflating at least one bladder on the under side of the backboard and providing the positive buoyancy required to support the object in the water. Also, the bladder(s) may be inflated manually by blowing into a tube connected to the bladder(s). The principle behind the NBRD is the elimination of the resistance caused by positive buoyancy until that positive buoyancy is utilized to remove the incapacitated individual or other immobile object from the water.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention further comprises a plurality of ties for facilitating securing of an incapacitated individual or object upon the buoyant body thereto. Ropes, straps, webbing, nets, etc. may be attached to the ties and placed over the object so as to maintain the individual or object safely upon the upper surface of the NBRD. Although handles are part of the NBRD surface, the ties are preferably configured as handles so as to facilitate carrying of the NBRD and object. Thus, when used as a water rescue device, the NBRD of the present invention may optionally function as a backboard for maintaining the spine in a straight and immobile configuration during transport.
Other accessories may include a head restraint assembly for substantially immobilizing the head of a patient and/or applying cervical traction when secured and arranged on the backboard, a plurality of adjustable tie-down straps which may be clipped anywhere along the periphery of the board, as well as supplemental carrying handles including securing clips enabling them to be clipped on the periphery of the board at desired locations. In addition, the NBRD may include handhold apertures, which allow the use of conventional straps and/or provide additional handholds for rescuers using the NBRD.
One object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is to provide an aquatic rescue backboard, which is compact and easily implemented.
Another object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is to provide a neutral buoyancy recovery device for transport of large or heavy objects from aquatic areas having inflating bladders to allow one individual to effectively stabilize the objects and remove the objects from the aquatic area.
Another object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is to provide an aquatic rescue backboard, which utilizes the concept of neutral buoyancy to assist in rescuing an injured individual from an aquatic area. Neutral buoyancy allows one rescuer to maneuver the NBRD under an individual without struggling.
Yet another object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is to provide a neutral buoyancy recovery device which acts as a backboard for transporting injured or incapacitated individuals form perilous aquatic areas and provide easy access to handles and straps used to carry and stabilize an incapacitated individual.